foundations

Laid out the footings at the weekend. 1. dig a hole 2. insert membrane and grid 3. fill with gravel finished!  

do mini plinths work? Given limits of time and intellect I have been forced to boil down the doubtless very complex relationship between pressure and ground type to a few hand-wavy sums. I hope there are no actual engineers reading. Here goes: How much does a 3.6m2 garden building weigh (roughly)? dead weight SIP panels are … Read more Foundations Part V

The standard way to construct the footings for a modern house, is to dig down to suitable soil and to lay a concrete bed. A few years ago I had a small 4m single story extension added to my house, and the builders had to dig down 2m to before the building inspector was satisfied … Read more Foundations Part IV

..or why we care about pressure. Why do buildings subside? Well the answer is, not surprisingly, that they are too heavy for the ground that supports them. How do you know if your house is going to subside? Well, the answer depends on two things – how much your house weighs and how much pressure … Read more Foundations Part III

It turns out that foundations and footings are not the same things – foundations are the base of the building that transfer the weight of the walls, floors and roof into the ground, and footings are what the foundations sit upon. This may seem pretty elementary, but it transpired that there were other fundamental gaps … Read more Foundations Part II

There will follow multiple posts on foundations for a tiny wooden building <groan>.  It’s overkill, I know. The normal caveats apply, namely that I have no qualifications in this area, so please do not do any actual building work based solely on the below. Here is what I already knew about building conditions in the … Read more Foundations